LCD brightness...the ipod might have been a bit brighter, but bear in mind that we didn't focus on features that much at all, the goal here was to examine the sonic signatures of the devices.
We each tested both devices essentially blindfolded. One person would wear the headphones, while the tester would sit behind the listener and play one song through each device. We listened to identical wavs that were encoded and transferred to both devices from the same computer.
Round 1: Etymotic ER-4S unamped w/Norah Jones "Don't Know Why"
Charlie was undecided, and I barely chose the iriver because of what to me felt like more adequate bass response. The piano also sounded a bit more realistic. White noise was quite clearly audible w/both players.
Round 2
Tomasz Stanko "Song for Sarah" from the Suspended Night album (Great, great album if you like Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" - it's also quite new w/a great quality recording).
Charlie barely picked the iriver and I decisively did. More detail imo. The drummer is ever so lightly hitting the cymbal in the intro of the tune. I only heard the cymbal with the iriver. Both sets of headphones were extremely detailed, however. You could hear the pianist pressing the pedals and you could also hear the wood on the keys after the pianist depressed them. Really good stuff. I though Tomasz's horn sounded slightly clearer w/the iriver, and I found that the bass was again, more satisfactory. Again both players had a bit of white noise which you probably wouldn't notice on more dynamic music.
Round 3
Beck "Paper Tiger"
I picked the iriver, as did Charlie.
From these conclusions, we pretty settled that the iriver was better w/the ER-4S
Strangely enough, when we did the same type of testing w/the Shure E2, the ipod won every round.
So, in short, I think both players might be headphone dependent, but also, I'd like to do more testing. It was really quite close, but at this point, I'm pretty comfortable keeping my iriver that i bought. Before testing it, however, i was ready to take it back to the store. I hate the interface and nothing anyone says can really change that. The ipod is a real joy to use.
The one big benefit of the iriver is the remote, which unfortunately sucks, imvho, thus eliminating its benefit to me for now. Bear in mind, I've used the remote for maybe 10 minutes, so perhaps once I master its numerous jog dials, I will feel differently about it. I have a feeling that it's always something I'm going to have to be fairly careful using since it has 3 identical dials.
But the benefit of the remote is that I usually keep my player in a backpack, so the remote makes it really handy.
The iPod was about half the depth of the iriver! A huge difference.
In short, it's really close. Both are good. iPod certainly looks, feels, interfaces better. iRiver doesn't convincingly soundbetter. Again, we concluded that you might want to pick your headphones before you pick your player.
YMMV, we are serious noobs to audio reviews, but we tried to at least be somewhat scientific.
